Blog for December 2016

Goodbye 2016 and Hello 2017

Hey there Everyone,

We are 9 short days from turning the page on 2016 and kicking off a brand, shiny, new 2017. We can not wait to be rid of 2016. We have had a great year, but globally, it has been a bit of a cluster. Good riddance 2016!

Holiday Hours

With that said, we are going to be taking a break from December 23, 2016 through to January 4, 2017. If you host with us, fear not, we keep the servers monitored 24/7 and will likely know about any issues before you do. During that time if you need emergency assistance, please call 204-957-5520 and follow our auto-attendant's instructions.

Recharging our metaphorical batteries is a very important part of working in the technology world and without it, we wouldn't be able to work as hard as we do on all your amazing projects.

Thank You

As always, we couldn't work on the internet for a living without all the wonderful people we get to work with. It is because of you that we exist. Know that we will be thinking of you over the break, and that there will be a toast raised to you. We wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and a wonderful, safe, fun, and happy holiday season.

Happy Holidays Everyone! See you in 2017!

Sincerely,

Julian, Doug, Ross, Wil, Max, Dwayne and Lauren

Wednesday, December 21st, 2016

Daily Links

The City of Winnipeg has entered into a data-sharing partnership with Waze, the free, real-time crowdsourced traffic and navigation app powered by the world’s largest community of drivers. Through Waze, Winnipeg drivers will be able to share information with and receive the latest traffic information from the City’s soon to open Transportation Management Centre.

"The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) today declared that broadband access Internet service is now considered a basic telecommunications service for all Canadians. The CRTC is also setting ambitious new speed targets and creating a new fund that will invest up to $750 million over and above existing government programs."

For the first six participants, the app will stream everyone’s camera feed to one another in a grid-like view. After six, Messenger will display only the dominant speaker’s feed. That makes Messenger’s video chat feature one of the more robust options in the industry, seeing as how both Google Hangouts and Microsoft Skype have 10-person limits on their consumer products.

Daily Links

Daily Links

Today, London-based food delivery juggernaut Just Eat announced it was buying U.K. competitor Hungryhouse in a deal worth £200 million (USD$250 million), and is also buying Canadian competitor SkipTheDishes in a deal worth CAD$110 million (USD$83 million).

Evernote is changing its privacy policy to let employees read its customers' notes, and they can't opt out. Users have until Jan. 23 to move their notes out of the company's system and delete their accounts if they want to avoid the sanctioned snooping. Companies using Evernote Business can have their administrators opt out, but users won't have individual control over it.

Daily Links

Like yesterday’s iOS 10.2 update, 10.12.2 includes support for new and redesigned emoji, but unlike the iOS update it focuses almost entirely on fixes and under-the-hood improvements instead of big, user-visible features.

Google’s self-driving car project is leaving the moonshot factory Google X and is spinning out to become a company called Waymo. The new company, which will be headed by long-time automotive executive John Krafcik, will be housed under Google’s parent company Alphabet.

A range of new emoji are included in the update, like clown face, face palm, selfie, fox face, owl, bacon, avocado, croissant, and more. There are more than a hundred new emoji, including several profession emoji available in both male and female genders. Apple has also redesigned many existing emoji, adding more detail to make them look more realistic.

Friday, December 9th, 2016

Daily Links

The feature will be rolled out to users over a few months. "HTML5 By Default" will be enabled for 1% of users of Chrome 55 Stable in the next few days. The feature is also enabled for 50% of Chrome 56 beta users. With Chrome 56 stable in February, Google plans to enable it for all users.

"You can also access the multiroom power of the Sonos home sound system directly in the Spotify app. We’ve brought out the best of both worlds to give you the smartest and most seamless home sound system yet."